Intro to sales management, sales manager roles, skills, personal selling concept

1. Introduction to Sales Management

2. Sales Management is the management of the personal
selling part of a company’s marketing plan.
Sales Management (According to American Marketing
Association) means the planning, direction, and control of
personal selling, including recruiting, selecting, equipping,
assigning, routing, supervising, paying and motivating as
these tasks apply to the personal salesforce.

3. The nature of Sales Management can be explained
by the following three ways:
1. Its integration with marketing management
2. Scope of sales management
3. Role and skills of modern sales managers

4. Sales planning should be integrated with marketing planning. A
company’s marketing team has two basic groups.
1. Field selling (or personal selling)
2. Headquarter marketing team
Field selling teams remain in their territories/branches/regions
contacting existing and prospective customers.
Head quarter marketing team performs support and service functions to
assist field sales people. They are:

5.  Promotion/Marketing communications (Advertising, sales
promotion, public relations, publicity, direct marketing and
events/experiences)
 Marketing Research (Collecting and interpreting information on
customers, competitors, products, markets etc.)
 Market logistics (Physical distribution of finished goods including
warehousing, inventory, transportation and order processing)
 Customer service (Pre-sales and post-sales service as well as
delivery service)
 Coordination (Coordination between customers, company’s
salespeople and production and operations by employing inside
salespeople)

6.  Recruiting, Selecting, Training, Motivating and Supervising
salespeople
 Participating in strategic planning
 Forecasting sales
 Taking part in budgeting process
 Designing sales territories
 Developing sales force organization structure
 Coordinating internally with various departments in the company
and externally with customers and advertising agencies.

7. Roles of Sales Managers
1. Strategic planning (Develop long-term and short-term forecasts,
obtain info about changing needs of customers, identifying the
strengths and weaknesses of the competitors)
2. Coordination (In addition to managing the salespeople, the first-level
sales manager (normally area/district/branch) coordinates with other
functions within the organization and also with customers,
intermediaries like distributors, retailers and dealers)
3. Use of technology (ERP and CRM software)
4. Managing multiple channels (Apart from company’s salespeople, other
channels like telemarketing, online selling, agents, all the
intermediaries are managed by the modern sales manager)

8. 1. People skills (Motivate, lead, communicate and coordinate
effectively)
2. Managing skills (Administrative skills like planning. organizing,
controlling, decision making)
3. Technical skills (Ability to use computers and problem solving
skills in the specific industry)

9. 1. Importance to a company (Sales management is the only
function that brings revenue into the organization,
Marketing plan always includes sales strategy)
2. Importance to a student (Plenty of career opportunities)

11. The nature of personal selling includes:
1. Transactional and relationship selling
2. Varying sales positions/sales jobs
3. Sales as a career

12. 1. Personal selling is mainly transaction-oriented
2. In the face of intense competition, companies are
trying to improve their performance with high sales
and profit potential customers by building a long-
term supplier-customer relationship.

13. Various sales jobs differ in terms of degree of problem solving and
requirements of selling simple to complex products and services.
Some of the sales jobs are:
1. Delivery salesperson (Delivers the product to household or
business customers)
2. Inside order takers (Order taking by standing behind a counter in
a retail store and Telemarketing)
3. Outside order takers (Going out into the market and selling the
products/services to intermediaries like distributors, retailers,
wholesalers and dealers)

14. 4. Creative sellers (Imaginary selling like selling durable products
along with intangible services such as insurance policies and
educational courses)
5. Consultative sellers/New business sellers (Experts in problem
solving of business customers)
6. Key account sales executive (A key account is an important
customer who has a high sales and profit potential. A key account
sales executive is given the responsibility to look after a few number of
such important customers)
7. Sales support salespeople (They support salespeople with their
specialized knowledge to solve customers’ technical problems. They are
not responsible for selling a product or a service. They also involve in
educating and training customers)
8. Missionary sales people (They don’t ask for orders, but provide
product information and promote goodwill about the product and the
manufacturer. Ex: Medical representatives)

15.  There are a range of sales positions as well as a range of managerial
positions in sales management as discussed earlier
 Sales compensation package generally consists of a fixed amount as
salary and a variable amount i.e. commission, profit sharing,
incentive or bonus etc.
 Also fringe benefits such as insurance, medical reimbursement,
pension Leave Travel Assistance, Generally, reimbursement of
expenses such as travelling, lodging and boarding are not considered
as a part of sales force compensation package.
 Non-financial rewards like recognition, promotion.
 A PGDM/MBA degree holder has a faster career growth in sales and
marketing management compared to a college graduate.